


Leadership Qualities

by mysticmajestic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticmajestic/pseuds/mysticmajestic
Summary: When Shiro contracts a deadly virus and has to go into quarantine, Lance picks up the mantle of leader temporarily, since he is Shiro's right-hand man. But the rest of the team doesn't agree with his decisions, causing tension.





	Leadership Qualities

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @mystic-majestic.

None of this would’ve been necessary if Shiro hadn’t been forced into quarantine.

  The Galra wreaked havoc on Shiro’s body during his second capture; whatever they had done had compromised his immune system in a way no one could’ve predicted. No one had thought to check to see if the shots Coran had produced for them needed to be updated until it was too late.

Oh, Shiro would make a full recovery. He’d caught an organ-eating disease that he’d fortunately presented the textbook symptoms for (vomiting, severe abdominal cramps, hot and cold sweats, and disorientation), allowing for Coran to find the cause immediately. As highly contagious as it was, it only spread through bodily fluids, which brought up the question as to how and why Shiro had caught it in the first place.

But in the meantime, as the Red Paladin, Lance was the stand-in leader.

And that’s what everyone seemed to have problem with.

Lance tried not to let it get to him when he saw everyone hesitate to follow his orders, occasionally questioning them, glancing at each other worriedly. They trusted him to fall in line and follow orders, but they didn’t trust him to _give_ them.

Okay, yes, Lance was often a goofball. He made jokes, sometimes rather inappropriate, to lighten the mood. He liked the idea of parades in Voltron’s honour because he thought they were a nice way to thank them for their hard work. Flirting was his way of coping with stress, of keeping himself from getting too serious so that he wouldn’t fall in a panic. His personality absolutely wasn’t for everyone. Yet he’d thought his team would have a bit more faith in him than this.

Apparently not.

“We need to avoid the Galra warships,” said Lance.

“Why?” demanded Pidge. “There’s only two warships. We have four lions, we can easily take them out.”

Lance gritted his teeth in frustration. “Who knows how many drones they have? Voltron isn’t an option right now. If it turns out they have more drones on board than we can deal with, we’ll be overrun.”

They had dealt with this kind of situation before, back when Keith had been distancing himself from Voltron and spending more time with the Blades of Marmora. Only unlike then, they don’t have someone else on board who could bond with the Black Lion, since Keith’s god-knows-where and Shiro’s in quarantine. If they went out there right now and exposed themselves, they could end up being outnumbered with very little chance of getting back to the Castle in one piece.

Lance won’t risk their safety when the odds were stacked so badly against them.

“I’m just saying it might be a better option to take out these warships,” said Pidge, shrugging, but there’s a tightness around her eyes that suggested she was starting to run out of patience with him. The feeling was mutual, “than run the risk of them calling in more. Take out the enemy when the enemy is small in number.”

“It’s a good idea, Lance,” said Hunk, shrugging apologetically.

“I said no. Allura, can you wormhole us out of the area? The best option for now is to lay low.”

Allura stepped forward, hands raised as if to pacify Lance. “Maybe we should consider—”

“I think you’re all forgetting that Shiro put me in charge whilst he’s in quarantine,” said Lance sharply, balling his hands into fists as he spun on his heels, glaring them down. “You all agreed to that. So, as acting leader, I’m telling you all that we need to _go_. It isn’t safe to act against the Galra when we can’t form Voltron. Understand?”

It irritated them further when they all looked at each other like they were waiting for someone else to disagree with him. No one did.

“Opening a wormhole now,” said Allura unhappily, turning away to do just that.

Pidge rolled her eyes and threw herself back in her chair. “We could have taken them down,” she murmured sullenly.  

Lance stormed off the bridge before he said anything he’d regret, the ship vibrating underneath his feet as it powered through the newly-formed wormhole. Was it too much to ask that the team have a little bit of faith in him? Despite what they thought, he knew when to be serious. With Shiro quarantined there was no time for jokes.

Speaking of Shiro, his feet seemed to have a mind of their own as they walked him through the corridors of the ship to the quarantine room of the med-bay that housed Shiro.

The quarantine room was a massive dome room that Shiro had free reign of, though he could not escape even if he wanted to; the room locked on the outside. Back when the ship had been populated by thousands of Alteans, according to Coran, there had been several outbreaks of various illnesses over hundreds of years that had the ability to leave the victim disorientated and terrified. King Alfor had added the lock to prevent them from breaking free and infecting others.

But another handy feature added was a slat roughly half the size of Lance and five times as wide. It slid upward and locked into place so that the inhabitants could still interact with others. Lance knocked his fist twice against the door, then heaved the slat up until Shiro came into view. He crossed the room from the bed, barefoot and clad only in a pair of sweatpants, and knelt in front of the door.

“What’s going on?” Shiro asked urgently. He pressed his cybernetic hand to the glass. Lance resisted to put his own hand over it. “Did Allura open up a wormhole?”

“Yeah,” said Lance. “I told her to. There were Galra nearby and I didn’t think it was a good idea to fight them when we can’t form Voltron.”

Shiro’s expression twisted into a grimace of guilt. “That was a good call, Lance.”

Hope cut through Lance’s irritated tension. If Shiro was on his side, then he couldn’t have possibly made a mistake when he chose not to let the team fight.

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” Shiro gave a one-shoulder shrug, lowering his hand from the glass. “I would have done the same thing.”

Lance sighed, relieved. “Thanks, Shiro.”

“Why’re you thanking me?” Shiro’s confused frown melted into an unreadable expression. He shifted until he sat cross-legged on the ground, gripping his knees. “Are the others giving you a hard time?”

“What? No!” Lance scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Of course not.”

Whether Shiro bought the lie or not wasn’t obvious, but he did end up letting the topic die, thankfully enough.

“Tell me what—” He coughed, thick and phlegmy, into his fist. Whilst the worst of the disease had been cleared from his system, he was left with the equivalent of a bad head cold, though he was still classified as highly contagious. “Tell me what else is going on out there. What have I missed?”

“Paladins!” said Allura’s voice over the intercom. The castle shuddered for a few seconds, then quietened into its usual soft hum. “We have made it out of the wormhole. No Galra have been detected in the area.”

“Not much,” said Lance to Shiro. “It’s been pretty quiet for the past few days. Too quiet. I—we all miss having you around.”

Shiro smiled knowingly. “I miss you, too, Lance.”

“I—yeah.” Lance’s lips twisted. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the ache of loneliness in his chest, ever present and strong enough that it felt like he couldn’t draw in sufficient breath. After dating Shiro for roughly three months, being in close-quarter contact with him every time they weren’t on separate missions or around the rest of the team, only to wind up having to speak to Shiro through a thick sheet of glass, unable to touch him… It was so hard. “I really, _really_ miss you.”

“It won’t be for much longer,” Shiro reassured him, though the flash of pain in his eyes was enough to convince Lance that the feeling was mutual. “He says that I’m recovering faster with each passing day. If nothing goes wrong, he says I’ll be back out within two weeks at most.”

“Good,” said Lance fervently. “The bed is way too empty without you.”

“Tell me about it. I have my choice of at least a hundred beds in this room, but no matter how much I try, I can’t sleep. None of them have you in it. You’re like a furnace.”

Shiro greatly enjoyed the fact that Lance was like his own personal space heater; during the nights he thought he was too keyed-up with anxiety to sleep, he’d found himself waking up fully-rested in the morning, often warm despite kicking the blankets off during the night to provide a bit of relief from Lance’s persistent heat. He would never be able to recall falling asleep at all.

He slept better with Lance by his side than without, and it showed; there were dark shadows under his eyes, which were bloodshot and slightly puffy. It was hard to tell whether the trembling in his limbs was from exhaustion or a new burst of adrenaline he’d get after being up for too long.

Not for the first time, Lance cursed the disease and the quarantine room for keeping him separated from Shiro. It was so hard to watch him suffer, completely powerless to do anything to alleviate it.

 _Just a little bit longer_ , was the mantra they used to power through.

 

* * *

 

After a week of dodging Galran warships, Lance could tell that the rest of the team (sans Shiro, for obvious reasons) was getting pissed off with him.

“We need to stop running!” Pidge yelled at him, when he ordered Allura to make another wormhole. “We need to _fight_!”

“And what happens if there’s more of them than we can handle?” Lance retorted. “Don’t forget the fighter drones on top of everything else. We’ll take them on when—”

“’When we can form Voltron’? We’re all Voltron! The lions are one of the most powerful machines in the universe.” Pidge threw up her hands. “Or have you forgotten that? We’re nothing to sneeze at even if we’re one lion short!”

“It’s a risk I’m not willing to take—”

Hunk broke in nervously, “Guys, please stop fighting—”

“Hunk, weren’t you saying the other day that you’re not sure Lance is making the right calls?” asked Allura pointedly.

“I—I didn’t say it exactly like that—”

“What?” Lance gaped at Hunk in betrayal. “Buddy?”

Hunk grimaced. “I didn’t say it like that! I just think it’d be easier for everyone if we took down some of these warships, that’s all. We’re running just a little bit too much.”

“I—you all trusted me to act as the leader in Shiro’s stead—”

“Yeah,” said Pidge scathingly, “and I think we’re all coming to regret that decision. You’re not Shiro; you’re no good at being the leader, _clearly_.”

Those words struck Lance like a gauntlet-clad fist to the stomach. He looked at Hunk, at Allura, hoping one of them would step in and say otherwise. Tell Pidge off. _Something_. But neither of them were looking at Lance anymore.

“Huh.” Ignoring the stinging sensation in his eyes, the twisting, sick sensation in his stomach, Lance clenched his hands into fists. “So that’s what you really think, is it? Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want. I’m out.”

“Wait a tick, Lance,” said Allura. “Let’s just talk about this reasonably—”

“No, you guys were pretty clear. You want to fight at a disadvantage? Go fight. Me and my uselessness will leave you to it. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so when shit goes tits up.”

“Lance—”

The door whooshed closed behind Lance, cutting Hunk off. As he marched down the hallway, he noted, bitterly, that none of them attempted to come after him.

He thought about going straight to Shiro, but if he did then he knew he would break down. Crying in front of Shiro without the possibility of physical contact to comfort him was the worst thing that Lance could imagine, especially for Shiro; the guilt would eat him up inside. Therefore, Lance marched toward the training room, ready to work out some of his pent-up aggression.

It worked; for over an hour he shot at the drones, dodging the return fire. He worked up a sweat quickly and forgot his issues even quicker. There was nothing he needed to worry about outside of the training room. Nothing at all.

“End training sequence,” he called out, finally, chest heaving from exertion.

At once, the drones dropped through the floor. He lowered his blaster and returned it to its original form. _Time to hit the showers._ He felt good, carefree, unconcerned. Steadfastly refusing to think about the rest of the team; he wasn’t ready to be furious again.

Once he’d finished with his shower, he decided to go visit Shiro. If there was one person he could count on to be on his side, it was Shiro. Not that Lance was going to go rat the team out. He wasn’t _that_ pathetic, no matter what the rest of the team seemed to think.

He stepped into the infirmary feeling slightly better than before, only to hear Pidge’s frustrated voice.

“He just doesn’t understand!” she said. Lance went cold all over, as if his veins had been filled with ice water. “We need to fight, not run. How many times do we have to keep running before Voltron looks like a team of cowards?”

“Playing it safe for now is a good idea—”

“Don’t defend him just because he’s your boyfriend!” Pidge snapped. “He’s being stupid, and you know it. We could have fought out there today and took down that warship, but because he got pissed off and walked away, we couldn’t. Allura wouldn’t let us go out there when we’d only have _three_ Lions. Once again, we had to get out of the area instead of taking down the enemies we swore to destroy!”

Lance’s hands clenched into fists as burning hot tears pricked his eyes. He was so angry he could punch something. How dare Pidge come here to talk shit about him to Shiro? _Fucking square up and tell me to my face, runt,_ he thought furiously. As much as he loved Pidge, she could piss him off like nobody’s business when she got into one of her moods.

“Pidge—” Shiro started.

“Why did you make _him_ the leader? He’s clearly not cut out for this—”

“You and Allura are hotheads,” said Shiro simply, “and Hunk tends to get swept along for the ride whenever the two of you get going.”

“ _I am not a hothead_!”

There was a pause. Lance could almost _hear_ Shiro arching his brow.

“Oh, _really_?” said Shiro. “The way I see it, you and Allura would have gone tearing after the Galra without any real care for the consequences. Sometimes the two of you get blinded by your own hatred, much to the detriment of people on your own side. As smart as you are with science and technology, Pidge, you’re often too brash and dense when it comes to dealing with other people.”

“I am—”

“If things don’t go your way, you yell and scream until they do,” Shiro continued unrepentantly. “It’s what you did when we were talking with Lotor about your father. You refused to see reason.”

Pidge let out an indignant noise.

“When I am back in commission,” said Shiro, “then we can see whether we can take out these warships. Until that time, listen to Lance. I put him in charge because he doesn’t get swayed by you guys. He’s the kind of person Team Voltron needs right now whilst I’m down.”

“But we need to fight—!”

“No, Pidge, you need to listen. Listen to Lance and obey his orders like you would mine. And don’t come in here to bitch to me about him like this again. If you have a problem with Lance’s leadership, then tell Lance. You can’t go behind people’s back like this when you don’t get what you want, it’s disrespectful.”

Pidge said in a betrayed tone, “I thought you would understand where I’m coming from—”

“I understand wanting to fight the Galra,” said Shiro. “But fighting when you’re down on teammates isn’t smart. You have to know your own limitations, Pidge. Fighting without the use of Voltron puts everyone involved at risk.”

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Pidge snapped. There’s a shuffling noise, as if she’s pushing herself up to her feet. Thinking quick, Lance ducked behind two shelves of Altean medicinal herbs, crouching in the corner to avoid being seen. “Fine. I won’t say anything more, even if I _completely disagree_ with both you and Lance.”

“Disagree with us all you like Pidge,” said Shiro calmly. “You won’t win this argument, not when you’re behaving like a brat.”

Pidge let out several more indignant noises, and then she was storming out of the infirmary, red-faced and furious, muttering, “I’ll go back to my laptop, then. Technology is the only thing that makes goddamn sense on this stupid fucking ship!”

Lance waited a few moments longer just in case she came back. She didn’t. Deeming it safe, he came out from his hiding spot and walked over to the quarantine door. The slat had been pulled over the glass, blocking his view inside. Unsure of what to do, he knocked.

“Pidge, I’m really not in the mood to continue the argument,” came Shiro’s tired voice. “I have told you my thoughts on the issue. Those won’t change.”

Lance’s lips twitched fondly. “It’s Lance.”

The slat was immediately shoved aside, revealing a surprised Shiro. He was paler than usual, his hair mussed as if he’d been asleep before Pidge’s arrival, but the skin around his eyes and nose were a bit red, as if he’d been rubbing them both incessantly.

Shiro’s shoulders slumped. “You heard everything, didn’t you?”

Shrugging, Lance said, “Depending on how long the argument went on for. I was only here for a couple of minutes.”

“Then you pretty much got the whole of it.” Shiro sighed, mussing his hair even more with his cybernetic hand. “Don’t worry about her, you know how obstinate she can be. Give her a bit more time and she’ll come around.”

“It’s not just her,” said Lance. “Allura and Hunk didn’t agree with my decisions either.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “I’m really no good at being a leader.”

“Ninety percent of being a leader is making choices your teammates won’t agree with,” said Shiro with a shake of his head. “No one is going to agree on everything all the time. Remember when you yelled at me for taking Keith to the Blade of Marmora that first time?”

It took Lance a second to figure out what Shiro was talking about. He snorted. “It _was_ a pretty dumb decision. Keith couldn’t stop himself from disobeying orders, and Red had to destroy half the Marmora base looking for his dumb ass.”

“You got up in my face about choosing him. Though I went along with my plan anyway—and don’t give me that look, it’s not like I chose him again after that fiasco—you made your stance pretty clear. Just like Pidge did today. This isn’t a black mark against your time as a leader. This is just you coming to understand how things work from the _other_ side of the table.”

The corners of Lance’s lips twitched in response to wave of affection that crashed over him. He longed to reach out and touch Shiro, to pull him close and kiss him—so much so that it was almost a physical ache. Shiro looked pained, as if he was experiencing the same thing.

“One more week,” he said.

Lance nodded. “One more week.”

 

* * *

 

Later that night, Lance was woken up by a hesitant knock on the door. He sat up, yawning, and slid his feet into his slippers before he went to answer it.

A tearful Pidge and Hunk stood outside, still clad in their daywear. They looked as if they were walking to the gallows instead of to their best friend’s bedroom.

“Guys?” Lance yawned, stretching his arms above his head. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry!” Hunk cried, lunging at Lance and yanking him off his feet for a rib-crushing hug. “I was a dick! I shouldn’t have disagreed with you! You were right! I’ve been thinking about it all day! Please, please forgive me!”

“Whoa, buddy!” Lance said, hugging back as best he could. “You haven’t done anything to be forgiven for. You disagreed with me, big whoop. It’s not the first time that’s happened and it won’t be the last. You’re acting like you kicked my dog or something.”

“But the way you looked at me,” wailed Hunk. “I felt awful! And you were only putting our safety first—I thought about it a lot when you walked off. The way Allura and Pidge worded their argument, I found myself agreeing with because it sounded logical.” _Just like Shiro said,_ Lance thought, hugging Hunk tighter until his arms started to ache. _He does tend to get swept along_. “But then I thought about your side of things, and that was just as logical! So I’m apologising right now for upsetting you like that, and for not taking your side into account earlier.”

“Like I said, buddy,” said Lance, warmed by the apology, “you have nothing to apologise for. It’s okay. I was never mad at _you_.”

“Yeah, Hunk,” said Pidge sullenly. “I should be the one apologising. I—Lance, I acted out of line today.” She inhaled deeply, as if gearing herself up for something. Hunk set Lance back on his feet, but kept his arm around Lance’s shoulders. “I went to go see Shiro behind your back to try and make him overrule your decisions.”

“I know,” said Lance. “I was there.”

The blood drained out of Pidge’s face, leaving her bone-white and trembling. “Y-you were what?”

Keeping his expression blank, Lance said, “I walked in on you two after I finished training. I heard what you said to Shiro, and I heard what he said in return.”

“I—I—” Pidge’s lower lip trembled seconds before she threw herself into Lance’s arms. “I’m sorry! I’m such an asshole.”

Laughing, Lance hugged her back. “I already forgave you, Pidge.”

“But how could you? I was _awful_.”

“Yeah, you were, there’s no denying that. But Shiro told me that ninety percent of decisions the team leader makes doesn’t sit well with the rest of the team. They just do it because he’s in charge and he should know best. It’s not the first time one of us has yelled at Shiro for a decision he’s made, or Keith, when it was him. Why should this work any different because it’s me instead of them?”

“I went _behind your back_ to get Shiro to override you,” said Pidge, tears streaming down her cheeks. She seemed to be reiterating her points in the hopes that Lance would punish her like she thought she ought to be. That thought helped settle the last of his anger toward her. “I didn’t just yell in your face.”

“And if you do it again, I won’t forgive you so easily,” said Lance. “But we’ve all been stressed out, so I’m gonna let this one go for now.”

“I—I—” Pidge was trembling so badly Lance wondered if she’d shake herself apart.

Lance held his arm out to her. “Come here.”

She needed no further invitation; she leapt into Lance’s arms, holding him in a vice-grip, and sobbed into his shoulder. The last of his anger toward her evaporated. In the end, he was left feeling grateful that he’d gone to Shiro after all, as he doubted he’d have been so forgiving had Shiro not given him that speech about leadership.

As soon as Shiro was out of that quarantine room, Lance will kiss him for all that he was worth.

 

* * *

 

Four days later, Shiro was released from the quarantine. He’d barely walked out before he had an armful of Lance. The weight of Lance knocked him back into the frame of the door, but he couldn’t have cared less as Lance practically drown him in kisses.

“I missed you _so much_ ,” said Lance.

Shiro captured Lance’s lips in a heated, passionate kiss, revelling in the fact that he could do that now. Quarantine had been hell without this, without _Lance_. Acting on his desires, he lifted Lance clean off the floor and twirled him around, causing Lance to shriek with laughter against his lips.

“Uh, yeah, this ain’t the best time to visit Shiro,” said Pidge’s exasperated voice. Lance and Shiro jolted in surprise, almost toppling over. “Let’s go back. Yeah, no, Lance got here first so trust me you don’t wanna see this.”

“Okay, well, welcome back Shiro!” Hunk called out. “We’ll leave you alone now.”

Shiro set Lance down on his feet, though they remained in each other’s’ tight embrace.

“Don’t come out until you’re done being gross!” Pidge added.

 _Then we won’t come out for a long time_ , thought Shiro, smirking down at Lance, who went red as if he could read Shiro’s thoughts.

As if on cue, an alarm blared.

“There’s a Galra warship approaching!” Allura said over the intercom. “Paladins, to the bridge immediately.”

Lance groaned, letting his head thump on Shiro’s shoulder. “No rest for the wicked, huh? At least now we have _all_ of Voltron.”

“Unfortunately.” Shiro grabbed Lance’s hand and took off running. “Come on, we should hurry.”

On the bridge, they surveyed the enemy and found that, yes, it was just a lone warship. Everyone turned expectantly toward Shiro, waiting for him to make his decision.

“Everyone, to your Lions!” he ordered, spotting Pidge’s expression light up in relief. “And get ready, we may have to form Voltron!”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment telling me what you think!
> 
> To be honest, I don't know where this one came from or what it was doing when I wrote it. Looking back on it, I feel like it just wrote itself. Going back and changing any part of this story makes it feel...lesser somehow, almost untruthful. So it is what it is, I guess. I'm a little nervous about the reception it'll get.
> 
> I went a little bit in on Pidge, but she really can be obstinate sometimes. She's not the bad guy in this fic - in fact, there are no bad guys in this fic - but just in case people get a little bit confused, this fic is about the team having internal issues that any team would. 
> 
> If you guys would like to see it, also, I could turn this into a series and write snapshots like Shiro getting sick, as well as Pidge, Hunk, and Allura's individual takes on Lance's leadership. I think that'd be fun to do, but only if it's something you're all interested in. :D


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